


Realisations

by JSClerk



Category: His Dark Materials (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:22:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28857276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JSClerk/pseuds/JSClerk
Summary: What if the daemon cage scene had played out differently? A slightly different take on series 1 episode in Bolvangar.
Relationships: Lyra Belacqua & Marisa Coulter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	Realisations

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone, this is my first attempt at fanfic. I hope you're all well and staying safe? I'm hoping to make this multi chaptered - if people like it, that is. :) I've read some amazing fanfics on this fandom and I thought I'd have a go.

‘I think I’ll go to bed. I want to see all of the children tomorrow. We shall find out who opened that door.’  
With a smile at her colleagues, Mrs Coulter gets up to leave, as she does so, the chair she was sitting on scrapes back across the floor. Ozzy climbs up her arm and onto her shoulder, his golden fur tickling her neck. 

’Thank you, Dr Cooper.’ 

She’s sure to give him a polite, sweet smile as he holds the door open for her, and receives one in return. The walk to her chambers isn’t that far, through two sets of doors, one of which faces the heavy door that hissed shut every time someone entered. Beyond that heavy door is where a child grows up, and she’s very glad of the work that her colleagues do, by helping children from all walks of life, to grow up happy, safe and healthy into adults. She has absolute confidence in them, that they will do their jobs to the best of her ability. 

She stops outside the door to her room, opening it with the key she has in her pocket. The second she closes it and ensures it’s shut, Ozzy climbs down from her arm and prowls along the dressing table by the bed, one black paw in front of the other. Leaving him to his own devices, Mrs Coulter places the keys in front of her on the dressing table and looks at her reflection in the mirror. Her shoulder length dark brown hair hangs glossy and shiny, the ends of which she'd had set in elaborate curls that framed her heart-shaped face. The material of her dark red woollen dress clings to her figure. 

The soles of her black suede boots are problematic for all of five seconds. Then her legs are free and boots stand proudly side by side on the floor. Ozzy jumps from the dressing table to the end of her bed. She turns to him, her right hand fingers stroking his fur, then she pulls him closer, settling him in her arms and kissing him on the top of his head. She leans gently back, pushing herself up the bed, using the palms of her hands to guide her towards the pillows, all the while gently coaxing him with her thumb.  
They settle together curled up and content, and she doesn't think of the next child to be in the guillotine. It wasn't scheduled until first thing in the morning. They could relax until then. Settling back against the charcoal coloured pillows that match the duvet cover, she strokes Ozzy gently. As he purrs, nestling against her breast to cuddle up to her, an ear splitting scream jolts both of them from their rest. 

The heavy door hisses shut as she wrenches open hers, forgetting that Ozzy follows her across the room in a hurry. He screeches as the sole of her foot covered by her tights collidies with his claw. She ignores her wince with a grimace, the only thing on her mind is the fact that behind that chamber is somebody who really shouldn’t be in there. 

Through the two sets of doors, she stops outside the heavy door that locks from the inside. The heavy one where, instead of an orphan child being in the guillotine: it’s the girl she’s held in her arms. The girl she’d given birth to and given away simply because she was selfish. Her fingers fumble as she taps the code into the keypad, the tears begin to well up as her hand twists the door open. 

‘What exactly is going on here?!’

The words fly from her lips as the tears spill over onto her cheeks. She shouldn't be this upset and she certainly shouldn't be crying. But this isn't just some random child - this is her daughter. Her child in danger. Through the glass partition where the blade swings down to rip children and their daemons apart, three of her colleagues: two men and the woman who were in the meeting, watch intently as the blade is in position, poised to dangerously swing. 

‘Who is this chi—’ 

She fails to complete the word as the tears splash down her face.

‘Lyra?’

Her eyes flash instantly to the lever that one of the men had just pressed upwards. With her hair no longer glossy and shiny and tears streaming down her face Mrs Coulter finds the emergency switch under the table, attached to the machine by an entanglement of wires. 

‘Mrs Coulter, is there something wrong? Because you normally like to watch?’ 

Dr Cooper’s words only make her cry more. A loud suckling sound fills her ears as her fingers flick the switch. A growl and a snarl follows, as a blur of orange sidles past her in a flash but then collided with the door that's always kept locked by the staff so they simply watch as the blade swings behind the protective glass. Ozzy comes from nowhere and seeing his humans distress, does his best to hurl himself at the door again. If anything snaps her back to reality, it's the fact that he's trying to help. Like a switch being flicked, she stumbles towards the chamber, hardly noticing that she's tripping over her own feet. She pounds on the door, battering her arms against it with her nails scratching the wood. 

* * * *

‘Lyra?’ 

She makes sure her tone of voice is as soft as it can possibly be. How else would she be able to reassure her that she's safe now? The poor girl hadn't stopped shaking, even as she’d carried her from the guillotine, so even trying to hold her steady had been extremely difficult.

‘Lyra, it's your mu-’  
‘It's Mrs. Coulter.’ 

Her left hand runs through Lyra’s hair as she crouches beside her, the fingers on her right tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. Then they go straight to Lyra’s waist, and attempt to place her gently into a comfortable position so both her and Pan can sleep it off.  
It's then that she chastises herself! Nobody had ever, ever called her mum. She hadn't even thought of herself yet as a mum. Not even when she'd seen Lyra for the first time at the table in front of the Master at Jordan College. Nor had she felt anything when they’d lived together. Not even when she’d had her in her flat, and hugged her goodnight before she’d gone to bed. 

But when her daughter had ran away, when she’d been up all night the evening after the cocktail party searching for her, a shred of worry had made its way to the front of her brain. It had been even worse when nobody had been able to find her, and then she did find her, several months later, it had been in that awful awful machine that she'd helped to create!!  
She wasn't sure if her heart had stopped beating or if it had broken first. It was her little girl that the people she was in charge of had tried to cut apart from her daemon.

‘Lyra? If you can hear me, I'm just going to leave you for a second, all right? All right, darling? You and Pan are completely safe here, nobody is going to hurt either of you. The doors closed, you do not need to worry, no one is coming to hurt either of you. You both just need to get some rest, so you have a bit of a sleep. I'll be back in a second.’

To stop her voice breaking, Mrs Coulter crouches at the side of the bed, runs the palm of her right hand down Lyra’s hair and gives her a tender, soft kiss on her forehead. 

‘Mummy’s right here, okay? And I am never ever going to leave you again.'

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you everyone for reading! :)


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